Comments on: Crucial M550 SSD Review (1TB) – Increased Speed, Capacity and Value

By: Benjamin Hojnik

Benjamin Hojnik — Thu, 12 Feb 2015 18:39:00 +0000

Its not all about the numbers benchmarks spit out. Yes, due to sata1 and IDE mode, speeds on paper are crappy, but they are still order of magnitude better than any harddrive out there. And access times, soo much better.
I’m using vertex2 (yes, those infamous crappy ssds) and its works magic on my crappy atom netbook (which is also sata1).

Just swap out to older drive and you’ll see 🙂
Also you try and play with alignment (xp formats does it inproperly for ssds) and storage drivers for amd (instead of just using builtin ones).

By: Les@TheSSDReview

Les@TheSSDReview — Thu, 12 Feb 2015 13:08:00 +0000

In reply to How_delightful. I started i SSDs back in 07 and remember IDE very well. For the most part, it only reduces performance by 15%, however, disk access remains the same with respect to start and operating system use. I cannot speak for older systems and thank you for your opinion as this 'lack of performance' is the first I have heard of this.

By: How_delightful

How_delightful — Thu, 12 Feb 2015 00:03:00 +0000

In reply to Les@TheSSDReview. I agree, where you are talking about SATA2 PC`s. Not 2005/2006 SATA1~SATA IDE models.

By: Les@TheSSDReview

Les@TheSSDReview — Wed, 11 Feb 2015 14:54:00 +0000

In reply to How_delightful. I can't say as I agree with that at all, and I have watched the transition of many older PCs after installing SSDs for friends. As true as it is that you won't reach the upper speeds of the SSD, most people would never in any case through typical use. The magic of the SSD is in access times, quicker startups and much faster regular system operation. This is the magic of the SSD for those older systems. It is like a shot of adrenaline.

By: How_delightful

How_delightful — Wed, 11 Feb 2015 01:36:00 +0000

I could only get the Crucial SSD to work in my Olde PC.
So; I bought one. M550 512Gb.
The good & the bad….

The GOOD.
It works with SATA1 Motherboards (from 2006); on XP 32-bit in an Athlon 64 (x2) rig. Fresh XP install.

The BAD.
Speeds are a train-wreck for SSD`s.
(Used the quick & simple `AS SSD Benchmark` tool)
It told me immediately that my SSD was:- “pciide-BAD” (PCI via IDE for the SATA port)
It told me immediately that my rig is:- 31K-BAD (not sure what that `limit` is)

SCORES…. (*XP Athlon64 [2006 rig])
Around 98 & 102 R/W in Seq. New rigs get well over 450)
Around 17 & 29 in 4k
Around 20 & 32 in 4k~64

Final Scores are… 47 Write 70 Read
Combined score 149.
When modern rigs get a `Combined score` of well over 1,000.

QED
SSD`s can be relatively useless for an Olde PC.
It will probably end up in a more modern laptop when the Athlon dies a death.